Dragon-Ridden (34 page)

“How about we get that chain off
you, and then get you home to your mother and father?” she offered.

He watched her curiously as she
poked at the lock on his ankle. She hissed when it zapped her, putting one
finger into her mouth.

“Ouch.” She shook her hand back and
forth. “Did it get you, little man?”

He watched her curiously and shook
his head slightly to the left and right. Good. He could understand her. For a
child his age he wasn’t very talkative. Maybe he was in shock. Tate had heard
of that happening before, of events being so traumatizing that a person just
faded back into himself or herself. His reactions didn’t quite fit, though. His
eyes were alert, and he seemed aware of his surroundings.

Tate wrapped a piece of cloth
around the metal, tucking it next to his ankle. She hoped that would keep him
from getting shocked. Judging from what happened earlier, the ankle cuff
wouldn’t shock him unless she messed with the lock.

She wrapped another piece of cloth
around her lock picking tools and screwing up her courage, she inserted it into
the lock. She jerked at the sharp shock she received but kept at it until she
felt a sharp give and the tools in her hands suddenly bent. She held them up
and cursed under her breath. The metal at the tips had been warped and half
melted. What kind of lock was this? She’d never seen anything like it

“Damn the Creators and their
misbegotten spawn to the abyss,” she swore, tossing the now useless scraps of
metal aside.

The little boy watched as she paced
up and down his tiny cell, muttering imprecations about annoying captains who
just had to plan for every contingency.

She ran her hands through her hair
and then shook them out. Alright. Picking the lock wouldn’t work. What else
could she do? Jost always said, if you couldn’t come at a problem directly, to
come at it from a different direction.

“Don’t worry, little man,” Tate
said, bending to study the chain connected to his ankle. “I’ll figure out a way
to get you out of here and back to your family.”

She picked up the chain and
followed it to where it attached to the floor. She fingered the bolts lightly
and jerked once hard. Dust flew, but not much else. It was made of strong
stuff. Not bending, much less budging. That way was a bust too. She hung her
head. Idea after idea turned out to be fruitless. All the while, time was
counting down. She’d been in the warehouse, ten maybe fifteen minutes at this
point.

She placed one hand on the floor to
push herself up and paused midway. Tate lowered herself back down. Hesitantly,
she brushed her fingers across the floor. The wooden floor. Slowly, she smiled.
Sideways, huh?

“Wait here,” she told the boy
before scrambling up the steps.

There were fishermen’s tools,
including some very sharp blades in one of the empty rooms she’d passed
earlier. With a sense of urgency and renewed purpose, she crept back to a room
that reeked of fish. Tools hung from the wall in neat little rows. She smiled
in victory. Those would do nicely. She grabbed the first bladed item she could
find. It turned out to be a long pole with a hooked blade at the end. Having
never fished before, she wasn’t entirely sure what it was used for. It was
sharp and that was really all she cared about.

She was about to turn to leave when
a small hand ax caught her eye. The pole fell from her hands, and she grabbed
the ax. This would be perfect.

“Alright, little man. I’ve got what
we need, and I’ll have you out of here shortly,” Tate said dropping down into
the smugglers hold.

The boy was as quiet and calm as
before as Tate drew the trapdoor closed. Hacking through a wood floor was going
to be noisy, and she didn’t want to make anyone who happened by suspicious enough
to take a look. Hopefully having a wooden door between her and them would help
mute some of the sound.

She hacked away at the floor where
the chain was connected. It wasn’t easy. The ax was too small for what she was
using it for and kept getting stuck. They were making headway, but slower and a
lot louder than she would have liked.

Finally after what seemed an
eternity, she placed the ax down. She’d done enough damage to the wood
surrounding the bolt that she thought she could pry it up.

Placing both feet on either side,
she grasped the chain and pulled with all her might. With a snap and crack of
wood, it tore loose. Tate fell back onto her ass when the chain suddenly went
slack.

“I can’t believe that worked,” she
said looking at the hole she’d created in the wood.

Water sloshed just below, the waves
a gentle swish, unconcerned at the stress Tate was currently under. During
storm surges, the smuggler’s hole would be underwater.

A sudden cry rose above them,
attracting Tate’s attention. She had a feeling they had discovered she was
here. Good thing she was ready to leave.

Tate thrust the chain into the
boy’s arms. “Hold that.”

She climbed the ladder and was
about to open the trap door when heavy footsteps rushed into the room. They
circled the room before pausing in front of the smuggler’s hole. Tate held her
breath as the floor creaked above them, her eyes trained on the trap door.

In a flash she had stuck a thin
piece of wood in the tiny holes where a bolt used to be. No doubt in times past
whoever had used this place could lock it from the inside. Seconds later the
trap door rattled as whoever was outside pulled on it.

“Guess we’re not going out that
way,” Tate told the boy, jumping down.

She crouched down as she considered
what to do next. Shouts rose outside and more men ran towards the trap door.
There’d be no exit that way. They’d have to hack their way through the floor
and hope there was enough space down there to crawl or swim out.

“Stand back,” Tate warned.

The boy stepped back until his back
met one of the flimsy walls. There was already a decent sized whole in the
floor where Tate had pried the chain up, and it wasn’t difficult to pry the
surrounding boards up with her ax. Finally she had a hole big enough that she
could fit through.

The floor above them splintered and
dust rained down on them. Looks like they’d found another ax.

“Let’s get you out of that robe,”
Tate said. “It’ll be easier to swim without it.” She jerked when the floor
splintered even more. “Now hold on tight to the chain and don’t let there be
any slack in it. The last thing we want is for it to get caught somewhere. Nod
if you understand me.” She was rewarded with a firm nod. “It doesn’t look like
there’s a lot of head room down there so we’ll probably have to hold our breath
to swim out. Can you swim?” He nodded again. “Good. I’ll go first then help
you. Hold onto my belt the entire way. I don’t want you getting lost.”

She tried to put confidence into
her gaze even though that was the last thing she was feeling. The entire situation
could go wrong with one bad decision. What they were about to do was dangerous.
She didn’t see any other alternative though. The boy was in danger if she left
him here.

Taking a deep breath, she jumped
down into the hole, flinching at the cold water lapping against her legs. The
tide hit her around her hips, which was better than she had hoped. She squatted
down until the water was right below her mouth, and taking a deep breath, she
sank totally under. The boy’s entrance caused ripples and strands of her hair
floated in a cloud around her head. She cracked her eyes open, steeling herself
against the immediate stinging of the salt water. There wasn’t much to see,
just darkness.

Little hands fumbled against her
shoulder, and she guided them down to her belt. Once assured he had a firm
grasp, she kicked off towards the harbor, placing one hand against the wood
above her head. It wasn’t long before her hand met open air. She surfaced with
a gasp and pulled the boy up with her. They were still under the warehouse,
which shook with shouts. She paddled towards open water, wanting to get out of
the immediate area.

Right before they left the dubious
safety of the warehouse’s shadow, she took a deep breath, nudging the boy to do
the same. Once again, they sunk below the water’s surface, gliding through its
depths. It surprised her how well the boy kept up. Instead of her having to
drag him, at times it seemed like he was slowing down to match her speed. Never
once did he release her belt, though.

Her lungs felt like they were about
to burst from lack of air, and she was forced to the surface. The boy gliding
at her side surfaced moments after her. Her lungs heaved as she sucked down
some air.

She chanced a glance back to see if
anybody had noticed their escape. Her eyes widened. The warehouse was on fire
and shadowy figures writhed next to it. Their shouts echoed over the water.

“Where is he?” a woman suddenly
shouted in rage.

Tate looked again at the shadowy
figures as they danced furiously, outlined against the bright orange of the
fire. They weren’t trying to put out the fire as Tate had first assumed but
were instead fighting each other.

“Umi,” the little boy said. It was
the first words he’d spoken. His voice was calm and fluid, but the undertones
seemed grief-stricken.

Tate didn’t know what to say. In
the end, she didn’t say anything and instead pulled him through the water.

Revelers were beginning to make
their way to the warehouse on boats in a haphazard attempt to stop the fire.
The noise grew, echoing over water as Tate breast stroked in the opposite
direction, tugging the boy behind her.

Dewdrop was waiting in the agreed
upon place, watching as the flame’s reflection danced along the wave tops. Tate
breathed a sigh of relief and breast stroked the last little bit. He gave a
shout when he saw her sleek head next to him and bent to help Tate when she
grabbed the side of the little boat.

“There you are,” he said. “I was
beginning to get worried. What took so long?”

Tate handed him the boy. “There
were complications.”

He looked from her to the boy with
an arched eyebrow but pulled him into the boat. “Why is it that whenever you go
somewhere you come back with a lost waif?”

“That’s not true,” Tate said.
Dewdrop leaned against the other side as she climbed on board. The boat rocked
under her weight.

“You came out of Lucius’ with
Night,” he pointed out as she shook water from her hair. The moisture created a
small pool in the bottom of the boat, but Tate didn’t care. It was great to be
out of the water. He picked up the paddles and handed her one. “You came out of
the Red Lady’s with me and the cubs. Now you steal this guy out from under
Jost’s nose. If this is going to become a habit, I might have to rethink our
arrangement.”

“I think he’s the fulcrum.”

Dewdrop cast an incredulous eye on
the kid sitting in the bottom of the boat with little expression on his face
and his hands folded precisely in his lap. “Him?”

She nodded.

“I thought it was supposed to be an
object.”

She shrugged. So had she.

“What are we going to do now?” he
asked.

“I don’t know. Obviously we can’t
give him to Lucius, and we can’t use him as leverage to find the key.”

“Why’d you take him then?” he asked
as he helped her paddle for one of the docks.

“What was I supposed to do? Leave
him there for Umi to find?” she asked. “You know who she’s mixed up with, and
you know what that person is willing to do. Even to children.”

He sighed knowing she was right but
not liking it.

“You’re causing us a lot of
trouble, kid,” he said over his shoulder.

The boy didn’t answer, instead
leaning over the side and peering down at the water with an all-consuming
absorption. It was as if Tate and Dewdrop didn’t exist. He nodded a few time
and tilted his head as if listening. Tate paused mid stroke, a bit startled,
especially when the boat picked up speed and glided into a dock where other
revelers had already tied up their boats before heading back to the festival.
Their rowboat floated to a stop and rested there, not moving despite the gentle
waves.

Dewdrop looked uneasily back at
Tate. “Why do you always have to find the weird ones?”

Tate shrugged, denying what had
just happened. It seemed better that way. Less confusing. Less weird. She
turned to stare at the little boy as he carried on his conversation with the
water and sighed. Pretending might not work if he continued to act in a way
that continually challenged her perception of the world.

First the feline with the
human-like intelligence and now a boy who could talk to water. Dewdrop was
right. She really did pick up all the weird ones.

The boy nodded one last time,
offering a faint smile before sitting back and regarding the two of them with a
blank expression.

“-out?” a man said from the dock.

“What was that?” Tate asked, not
taking her eyes off the boy. Where’d all the facial movements go from when he’d
been conversing with the water? He’d actually looked normal for a moment.

“Are you going to get out or sit
there all night?” he asked impatiently.

Tate and Dewdrop’s boat was one of
the last to be returned, and the man wanted to lock up his merchandize before
heading to the festival. Tate looked down at the paddle in her hand.

“Of course.” She reached down and
helped the little boy onto the dock. She clambered up next before holding her
hand out to Dewdrop and then the child, pulling them up. The man grumbled
before hoping down into the boat and rowing it to its slip.

“Did you really have to let him
come with us?” Dewdrop asked, leaning into her.

“So he can control water,” Tate
said, waving his words away. “Your scream can rupture internal organs. I have
no past and Night is a monster cat. We’re not exactly in a position to cast
stones.”